Editor's note: This story has been corrected to reflect that the layoffs at AbbVie’s Irvine site are within the company’s eye care business, not within its Allergan Aesthetics unit as previously reported.
A year after a major layoff round at its Allergan headquarters in California, AbbVie is making more edits to its workforce with a new round of 85 layoffs.
The 85 permanent layoffs at the company’s Irvine, California, location will become effective on July 20, according to a recent California Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notice, and concern AbbVie's eye care business.
AbbVie’s Irvine digs occupy 54 acres and 1 million square feet of campus space. The site is listed as the company’s center of excellence for aesthetics, neurotoxins, neuro-psychiatry, migraine and eye care research, according to its website.
Last year, the company shrunk its Allergan-specific workforce at the site by 202 workers, an action that reflected “a reorganization to better position Allergan Aesthetics for sustained leadership within the dynamic aesthetics industry," a company spokesperson told Fierce Pharma at the time. Before that came 99 layoffs in 2022.
AbbVie picked up Allergan and its popular Botox, among other products, including its eye care franchise, for $63 billion in 2019 as it looked to prepare for the loss of exclusivity to its then top-selling med, Humira.
After several quarters of recent sales declines for the Allergan aesthetics segment, including a 6.1% revenue slide in 2025, the first quarter of 2026 saw a resurgence of growth, with sales jumping 7.6% to $1.2 billion.
But late last month, the company’s effort to bolster its Botox franchise with a fast-acting follow-on was snubbed by the FDA, with the agency requesting more information on its manufacturing process in a complete response letter. The injection is meant to take effect hours after administration and would offer a quicker option to standard Botox, which takes a few days to set in.
Still, AbbVie maintained that it was “well-positioned to respond to the agency's feedback promptly to support completion of the review,” chief scientific officer and EVP of R&D, Roopal Thakkar, M.D., commented in a company release.